The Nation Ford High School boys’ lacrosse team opened its season with a 9-6 win over the Riverside Warriors.

Coming off a season in which they made it to the 5A state championship match only to fall to Wando, the Falcons didn’t have any off-season hangovers to deal with in starting the 2018 season with a new outlook and a new head coach in John Tauzin.

Nation Ford was led in the game by Zach Skidmore, who scored four goals. Alex Ramadanovic and Finn Gleason each scored two goals in the win as well.

The Falcons jumped out to an early lead, scoring just over a minute into the match on a goal by Skidmore. Riverside took a while but got on the board later in the first quarter with a goal of its own with about 4:20 left in the period.

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Skidmore added his second goal of the game with about 90 seconds left to play in the first quarter, again putting the Falcons on top.

The second quarter got interesting as Riverside tied the game up at 2-2 just under the eight minute mark and before the teams could get set for the next face off, a bank of lights went off on one of the poles, leaving a portion of the field a little darker than the rest and delaying the match for about 10 minutes.

The first half was a defensive struggle and saw nearly eight minutes without scoring to end the first half. That struggle ended in the second half, at least for Nation Ford, which scored four goals in the third quarter.

We have a young team,” Tauzin said. “It was just a matter of making our shots fall.”

Nation Ford wasted no time opening the second half as the Falcons scored 90 seconds into the third quarter when Alex Lavigne put the team on top. The Falcons got the breathing room they needed later in the third quarter with about 6:45 left as Ramadanovic scored to put Nation Ford up by two goals.

The Falcons extended their lead about 1:20 later as Gleason got in on the scoring action to make it 5-2 . The momentum continued in the quarter as Skidmore got the hat trick after scoring with about 4:20 left in the period and added his fourth of the game with just over two minutes left in the quarter.

Nation Ford would go up 8-3 in the fourth quarter on another goal by Ramadanovic, but Riverside fought back to score two consecutive goals. With just under three minutes, Gleason gave the Falcons another cushion with his second goal of the game.

Falcons goalie Chris Cost played well in the net for Nation Ford with a multi-save game. Up next for Nation Ford are games against Clover and Charlotte Latin, both on the road.